Pradeep Agarwal 27 October 2017

Forged signature in 138

A lender has issued a notice under 138 to my uncle. I advice him on general matters and upon detailed inquiry I found that the lender had an altercation with my uncle in June. Following that he had decided to not issue future security cheques to the lender. In September, the lender has deposited a cheque to the bank for the loan amount and cheque was returned as balance was insufficient. Upon digging deeper we found that the cheque book for the bank account is missing and the signature has a slight variation from the earlier surety cheques that he usually issued. It appears that the broker of the loan (unofficial) had taken the cheque book and as that account was used only for surety cheques the missing book went unnoticed. The forgery is a good one agreed but the difference is clearly visible and when compared to older surety cheques, never did the earlier cheques match this one. Note: The signature in bank KYC etc also matches earlier cheques and not the bounced cheque.

Reply Follow

8 Replies

(Guest)

Sir, if that is the case, you reply the same from an advocate to the so called person .

(Guest)

... by giving a reply legal notice to such person..

Nitish Banka (lawyer) 27 October 2017

you need to establish the fact of forgery reply to legal notice

Siddharth Srivastava (Advocate) 27 October 2017

Donot give any reply to the notice u/s.138 NI Act as any reply would make the lender wiser and secondly your reply would not restrict him in filing complaint. On becoming wise lender will create evidences. Let lender to file complaint then raise your issue and get the cheque examined from handwriting expert and also CFSL. Consult a lawyer with details.

Siddharth Srivastava (Advocate) 27 October 2017

Jaspal singh (practicing lawyer) 30 October 2017

Agreed with Advocate Sidharth Srivastva, let the lender filed the case against your uncle and than you submitted in your reply that they had done forged signautre by making an application for FSL/ Handwriting report.

Once it proved that the forged signature has made on cheque for unlawfull gain and the false and fabricated case has been instituted by the lender, u can made and Fir against the lander in Appropriates sections of Extortion and Criminal Conspiracy.

Regards

Jaspal S Maini(Adv)

9999987283

Pradeep Agarwal 01 November 2017

Dear Mr. Srivastav

Thanks for the advice. I did just that. My lawyer had called an independent HW Expert but his opinion seems rather bleak. He says, the quality of the forgery is actually very good. Uncles surname ends with '...tia' but his sign has only till 't' but the cheque produced has the 'ia' also. Also, he usually signs with an underline stroke but that is not present in the cheque in question. HW expert says apart from this, everything else is practically perfect. He's warning the Forensic report could go either way so be careful.

??? This is very perplexing. What should be done??